Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1946 Lucky Bag:

Vincent Walter Barry

As long as the Blue and Gold flies above the cinder path, the name of Walt Barry will not be forgotten at Navy. The Academy’s distance ace ran so many records into the ground that Annapolis track fans were soon reading the Sunday sports columns only to learn who had won show money in the mile. Walt’s Notre Dame background smoothed out the academic bumps, and a host of beautiful girls made his week-ends pleasant. The Navy certainly has every right to demand great things from Walt Barry.

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The Class of 1946 was graduated in June 1945 due to World War II. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.

Loss

Vincent was lost on March 8, 1948 when the training plane he was aboard crashed 35 miles west of Pensacola, Florida. The instructor pilot was also killed.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Vincent was a student pilot, and Ensign Julian D. Tarasuk was the instructor pilot. They were making a simulated emergency landing at a Navy practice field when the craft hit a tree at the edge of the field and crashed 35 miles west of Pensacola. This was to be Vincent’s last training flight.

At Notre Dame in 1941 and 1942, he was a prominent track athlete who won three sports letters. He was also a member of the Aeronautical Club. He was appointed to the Naval Academy by U. S. Rep. James A. Shanley (D-Conn.)

He won the intercollegiate cross country championship in 1944 and the intercollegiate mile championship in 1945. He won six sports letters while at the Naval Academy. He was to leave Pensacola for Annapolis to train with other Navy athletes for the Olympic games track tryouts.

During the final stages of the war, he was assigned to the U. S. S. Denver, a cruiser, and saw action at Okinawa and Kobe Bay. He married the former Marilyn Jones in December 1945 when he was on leave. Their daughter was Diane Elizabeth.

Vincent father Walter was New Haven’s city engineer and president of the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers. His mother was Myrtle; brothers Walter, Myrton and Alfred, and sister Marion who was an actress. In 1940, Vincent was a timekeeper at the city’s tennis courts.

He is buried in Connecticut.

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John Caskey ‘46 was also a member of 10th Company.